jhgfjhgf gfjhgf jhf hgf hnf hn vngv nhg hghvhg
To whom it may concern,
As the student body president at Southern Oregon University and the 2008-09 Oregon Student Association board chair, I would like to respond to a Daily Emerald article (“Registration Risk?” ODE, Oct. 7).
To begin, I think it is important to clarify the structure of OSA and why this organization wins the victories for students that it does. The Oregon Student Association, whose board of directors is made up entirely of students, is a coalition of student governments across the state. OSA’s priorities and campaigns are brainstormed, deliberated and selected by students. I was perplexed when OSA was referred to as an “off-campus organization” in the Emerald’s recently published article discussing voter registration practices. The OSA is quite the opposite of an outside organization, as its institutionalized, decision-making positions are meant for members of the established student governments at public institutions of higher education across Oregon.
In the fall of 2006, this structure empowered our state’s student leaders to come together and register over 22,000 of their peers to vote. The very next legislative session, the momentum and respect students had gained during that voter registration drive allowed them to advocate for what was to become the largest reinvestment in post-secondary education Oregon had seen in over a decade.
However, Oregon’s students still deserve more. The Shared Responsibility Model and the Oregon Opportunity Grant have yet to gain full funding. Oregon’s state funding remains extraordinarily low. The Student Parent Child Care Program remains inaccessible for many of Oregon’s families. Our state continues to abandon some of its best and brightest students after they graduate from our K-12 system because we have not yet passed tuition equity legislation. These issues, and myriad others, are the reasons why student governments from around the state are working together to register and turn out even more students to vote this fall.
In the 2007 legislative session, Oregon students saw and felt the positive results of registering and turning out to vote in large numbers. Thus we were able to take the first steps in making Oregon stronger. In this fall’s elections, we have an opportunity to empower, educate, and turn students out to vote once again. This time, the voter registration, education and turnout work of student governments from around the state (members of the Oregon Student Association) will build on the victories won last legislative session, and move Oregon forward.
[email protected]